


i'll be seeing you wherever i go

by actualbabe



Category: New Girl
Genre: F/M, Just roll with it okay, but i promise things are okay eventually, this is kinda weird but i like it, tw: car crash, very angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualbabe/pseuds/actualbabe
Summary: Nick and Jess get in a car crash that one of them doesn't walk away from. But that doesn't stop Jess from lingering in Nick's disoriented thoughts as he tries to cope with his new reality.
Relationships: Jessica Day/Nick Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	i'll be seeing you wherever i go

They’re arguing about something. They’re always arguing about something. Arguing, bickering, yelling, fighting, whatever kind of label you wanna slap on it. It drives Nick fucking crazy sometimes, having to put up with it all the time, especially when he’s trying to shove down that weird pull of attraction in his gut to instead focus on the white hot rage that Jess sends through his veins. Anger and lust and frustration and love all scrambled up into a snarled knot that he can’t undo, doesn’t really wanna undo. 

He wants her to be the one to do it, to reach into his chest with her dainty fingers, her nose all scrunched up in concentration and glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose as she picks at the tangled mess. Jess perched in his lap and looking down at him like  _ that _ , like he’s some kind of puzzle she wants to figure out. His hands resting on the soft, bare skin of her hips and mind blissfully blank as he watches her watch him, his heart leaping up into his throat when she sinks the sharp edge of her white teeth into the swell of her lower lip. 

Except they’re not in his bed, her enticing pale curves pressed to his sweat-slick skin. Instead they’re on some half-thought-out trek to go camping or some shit because Nick’s never been to the Redwood forest and they need some place to go that isn’t back to the loft. They’re in the same clothes from Cece’s wedding, Nick’s tie long-since abandoned in the backseat and his shirt smelling like a combination of the dusty air vent he crawled through and the accumulating stench of his sweat. Jess’ sari is equally worse for wear, and she keeps drawing odd stares when they stop for snacks at the variety of truck stops up the winding California highway.

“Would you slow down?” Jess complains, her lips drawn down in a pout as she gazes out the window at the blur of trees they fly past.

“There’s no one around,” Nick counters, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.  _ He’s _ the one driving. Jess is in charge of navigation. Can’t she let him do his own damn job for once? “We’re fine.”

She huffs, unimpressed. “Just because there are no cops around doesn’t mean that suddenly all crimes are legal.”

“I’m going fucking ten over, Jessica.” He grits his teeth together, sick of arguing at her for the third consecutive hour. “That’s not a  _ crime _ .”

“It’s  _ illegal _ .”

Nick groans, but he doesn’t change the pressure of his foot on the accelerator. “Just pass me the trail mix.”

Jess doesn’t push him any further, just makes another annoyed noise as she digs through the mess of plastic bags at her feet, muttering something under her breath with the higher-pitched version of her Teacher Voice that she uses when she’s convinced that she’s right.

“Here.” She shoves the bag towards him, the top half-ripped in annoyance.

He digs around for a few seconds, his frown slowly deepening. “Wait, where are the M&Ms?”

“What?” Jess’ brow wrinkles in confusion. “It’s  _ trail mix _ .”

“Uh, yeah... Everyone knows you just dig around all that other junk to get at the chocolate pieces.”

“That couldn’t be any more wrong.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes!” Jess lets out an exasperated groan. “God, Nick, I swear that you’re such a  _ child _ sometimes.”

“Oh, so you  _ do _ think I’m a child!” he yells back.

“Because you keep  _ acting _ like one!”

“Well I’m sorry I can’t meet your fucking  _ sky high _ expectations!”

“I’m asking for the  _ bare minimum _ here, Nick!”

“I’m asking for  _ an inch _ of lee-way, Jess!”

They’re flying down the road now, his anger turning his foot into lead as he subconsciously pushes down harder on the gas pedal, his grip on the steering wheel so tight that it’s turning his knuckles white. He keeps trying to turn to face her, to make his point and stare her down so she knows that he isn’t gonna let her just win every goddamn one of these fights. Jess gets so uppity sometimes, so damn convinced that she’s right and that everyone else is wrong, too far up on her high horse to acknowledge anyone else’s opinion and Nick fucking  _ hates _ it.

“You’re insane!” he yells, pointing an accusing finger at her.

“You drive me nuts, Miller!” Jess screams.

“Oh fuck _ off _ , Jess!”

Jess shrieks. “Nick, the road!”

The truck driver doesn’t try to stop, doesn’t slam on his horn, doesn’t do anything, because he’s three-quarters asleep behind the wheel and so hopped up on allergy pills and energy drinks that he doesn’t even register that he barreling right into them.

Nick reflexively jerks the wheel to the right but it doesn’t do anything to help. They slam into the truck at full speed, catching the front corner of the truck and sending their car rolling off the road and through the steel meridian like it’s made of tissue paper. The car goes careening, and Nick feels himself tossed around like a rag doll, limbs flopping about and only barely held back by the seatbelt Jess had nagged him into wearing. Everything happens so fast that he can barely process it, and everything goes dark when his head slams forward into the airbag.

\---

Things finally come to still, and Nick can faintly hear the distant curses of a flustered man freaking out about how he’s going to lose his job and that’ll they’ll revoke his truck license over this for sure, followed a short while by a paramedic team yelling out instructions that Nick can’t quite make out through the wetness leaking down over his ears. The darkness surrounds him again and Nick falls into it, lulled into unconsciousness by the ache in the back of his head.

\---

When he wakes up he’s in the hospital, the smell of antiseptic clogging his nose and his shoulder trapped in a huge black sling that’s holding his arm in place. Nick’s leg is heavy, and when he blinks his gritty eyes open he notices a plaster cast is wrapped around his lower right leg. 

“Nick!” Schmidt leaps up from a plastic hospital chair to stand at his bedside, his eyes lit up with surprise and delight. “Fuck, man.”

“How long was I out?” Nick’s thoughts feel cloudy as he looks around the room, trying to remember where he is and how he got here. The effort makes his head hurt, a dull throb that feels like a too-tight helmet he stubbornly tried to shove his head into. “What happened?”

“A few hours,” Schmidt explains, his voice still pitched high with disbelief. “You were in a pretty bad wreck.”

The pieces click into place like that, the flash of headlights barreling towards them, the smell of smoke, Jess’ voice ringing in his ears as they argued. A sudden tightness grabs at his heart, squeezing like a vice as his field of awareness focuses on one infinitely important detail. “Is Jess okay?”

Schmidt’s face falls and it feels like a hundred pound barbell drops into the pit of Nick's stomach. “I’m sorry...”

“Where is she?” Nick asks again, shock and horror slowly descending upon him. The room feels like it's caving in on him, pressing all the air out of his chest while he struggles for breath.

“Nick...”

“Where’s Jess?” he demands, refusing to make the connection himself. His disoriented head feels empty, alarm bells ringing as a recurring sharp pain stabs through his temples to reverberate through his aching skull.

“She didn’t make it,” Schmidt says softly.

A cold rush runs down Nick’s spine as his world flips upside-down.

\---

It doesn’t really hit him until the funeral, mostly because Nick straight-up refuses to believe that it’s happening. The time between waking up in the hospital and the day of the service passes in a blink of an eye with Nick too exhausted from trying to recover from his injuries and numb with denial to be aware of the days flying by. He shuffles into the chapel of the funeral home, struggling to keep his balance on his crutches since he’s riding a mix of painkillers and alcohol that he’s really not supposed to be drinking. 

There’s a photo of Jess up at the front next to the coffin, where a distraught Joan and closed-off Bob stand somberly while various friends and family come up to pay their respects. It seems wrong for the reproduced image of Jess to be smiling so brightly given the somber mood of the guests. But it also seems odd to portray her any other way. Even when Jess is miserable she still manages to pull off a watery smile.

She  _ used _ to manage.  _ Fuck _ . Nick still hasn't figured out how to think and talk about her in the past tense. It just doesn't feel right. Like she's still Jess even though she's... Well, you know.

The casket is open, but even from a distance the sight of it makes Nick’s stomach heave, so he just takes a seat near the back of the room where he hopes he won’t attract any attention. Winston joins him a moment later, giving him a silent pat on the back as he takes his seat before handing over a pamphlet for the ceremony off to Nick. There’s another photo of Jess on the cover, and her sweet smile makes Nick’s heart seize up with hurt as his stomach churns with guilt. 

It should've been him. He was the one driving the car. He was the one who didn't see the truck coming until it was too late. He was the one who started that stupid fight. Nick's been wracked with misery since Schmidt told him the news. He would give up  _ anything _ to fix this. All his life he's sworn to take care of the people he loves, to be better than his no-good flake of a father. But he failed. He's such a fuck up that he couldn't take care of the person who mattered more to him than anything else. 

Nick leans forward in the pew to run his hand through his hair in defeat. The guilt of it is eating him up from the inside, leaving a sour taste of bile in the back of his mouth and a constant throbbing in his head, worse than any hangover he's ever had. There’s nothing he wants more than a drink, something to calm his nerves and help him forget this nightmare is real. But his flask has gone surreptitiously missing, likely some scheme by Schmidt and/or Winston to keep him from going off the deep end and doing something crazy. 

The service is nice, even though the pastor leading it doesn’t really know anything about Jess so all of his words feel like empty platitudes. Nick feels tears slip down his face the minute the organ first starts to play, and Winston is polite enough not to comment on it even after Jess’ family give their eulogies and the room slowly clears out with one final hymn.

“Do you want to go to the burial?” Schmidt asks them when they regroup in the lobby area. “I’m going with Cece.”

“I don’t think...” Nick trails off, not sure what the end of that sentence is.  _ ‘I don’t think I can handle it,’  _ feels impossibly selfish.  _ ‘I don’t think they want the man who killed her to be there,’ _ is the truth, but it hurts too much to admit out loud.

Winston gives his shoulder another reassuring shake. “We’re gonna go home. Process things.”

Schmidt nods in agreement, and gives each of them a vigorous bear hug before leaving. He squeezes Nick a little tighter than he probably should, given that his shoulder is still tender from when it popped out of place. When he wraps an arm around Nick’s back, Schmidt reaches up to give his hair a tug, which Nick would normally tell him off for being too weirdly intimate, but he still feels so broken apart that he can't bring himself to do so.

He finally steps away with a resounding slap on Nick’s back. “I’ll see you at home.”

\---

When they finally get home, Nick stumbles around the apartment numbly, trodding back and forth across the living area on his crutches like it'll calm the storm inside his head. There's some whispered voice in the back of his head that tries to goad him on, positing things like if he can make it to the end of the hallway in three steps or tap one of his crutches against his big toe fifty five times then Jess will come back. He knows that's not how this works, but it doesn't stop him from staring longingly at the front door, just in case Jess happens to walk in after he completes one of his invented challenges.

Both Schmidt and Winston turn in early, only sparing Nick a worried look before retiring to their respective rooms to process the events of the day. Time passes without Nick being aware of it, until he's exhausted and the moonlight filtering in through the window casts strange shadows over the loft. But Nick keeps going, the steady clack of his crutches the only thing still making noise at this late hour. 

Despite the ache in his shoulders from the crutches digging into his armpits, Nick continues his relentless pacing, head aching as he tries to make sense of it. Jess is gone. She’s  _ gone.  _ And it’s all his fault because he wasn’t paying attention to the road ahead of them, all because he wanted to prove his point to her. And instead the last words he ever said to her were telling her to fuck off. Like an asshole.

Nick falls onto the couch with a thud, the ache in his head doubling down as his muscles whine in protest from his relentless torture of them in his exhaustive quest to punish himself for his actions. 

He and Jess were so fucking close. After months of being too cowardly to admit his feelings, he finally had made his move. They held each other tight and whispered confessions into bare skin as Nick moved over her, Jess rolling her hips up to meet him as he cursed under his breath and tried not to lose his mind from the intensity of it. And even with the world pitching every possible obstacle their way, they still made it through the unexpected chaos of Cece’s wedding and back into each other's arms. It feels like only yesterday that they agreed to 'uncall it,' when he was holding Jess in his arms and kissing her as she smiled against his mouth in joy and relief. 

But just like everything else in his life, Nick managed to fuck it all up.

He brings his hands up to his face to rub tiredly at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He needs a drink. Or some sleep. He hasn’t slept at all since the accident, the time all blurring together into something incomprehensible that he can’t truly remember or parse out. The doctor told him he would have trouble with that for a while, that his head was rattled pretty hard and he would probably be struggling to get things right for a few more days. Nick grits his teeth as a fresh wave of pain washes over his head, making his vision swim until it finally abates to a dull throb behind his eye sockets.

With a long sigh Nick leans forward in his seat, fumbling on the floor for his abandoned crutches. After finally managing to find them in the darkness, Nick hauls himself up off the couch to balance on his good foot, wincing at the press of the crutches against his tender underarms. His throat feels dry and gritty with regret and guilt, so Nick reluctantly makes his way towards the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water before he finally crashes into his bed. But when he rounds the corner of the couch he sees something that stops him dead in his tracks.

Jess is standing in the kitchen, making a cup of tea like she always does when she can't sleep. Her fingers flip through the different options of tea bags in the little tin she keeps by their toaster while the kettle of water heats up on the stove. There's a crinkle between her brows as she considers her options, swaying back and forth on her feet like she just can't keep still for even a moment.

After another moment of consideration, Jess plucks out an orange teabag and sets it aside on the counter so she can fuss with the kettle. Nick takes another step towards her, and when he gets close he realizes with a dawning terror that something’s  _ off _ . Jess has always been pale, but she’s practically translucent, and Nick swears he can see the shimmer of the metal kettle through the back of her hand. Her hair looks like it’s floating just above her shoulders, like she’s submerged in the bottom of a pool, and the curls swing slowly as they’re pushed around by some invisible current.

Nick’s breath catches in his throat as he stammers, “Jess?”

At the sound of her name Jess turns her head to face him, her hair swirling around her head as she does. The planes of her face are strange, both rounded and flat all at once, like the artist who drew her couldn't decide if they wanted to make a cartoon or a three-dimensional figure. It's almost like an uncanny valley, unmistakably Jess but also not quite right in a way that's strangely unsettling and puts him on edge.

The figure of Jess smiles, and it sends a cold chill down Nick’s spine. It’s familiar, but in a way that’s not familiar at all, like her teeth are too bright and her lips are stretched a fraction too wide. Her eyes are unfocused as if she’s looking straight through his chest at something across the room instead of him standing right in front of her. Nick reaches other to touch her shoulder and feel the soft flannel of her pajama set, but his fingers don’t catch on anything, just pass right through her like she’s not there at all.

_ “When will this end?"  _ Jess asks him, her voice a million miles away despite that her face is but a few inches from his. It echoes in the silence of the kitchen and makes the hair on the back of Nick's neck stand up, like he brushed up against a live wire by mistake and shocked himself.

The pain in Nick's head doubles, flaring in the edges of his vision. “I don’t-”

_ “You're scaring me.” _

He stumbles backward, nearly losing his footing on his uninjured leg as he fumbles with his crutches. “I-”

_ “You need to wake up, Nick.” _

\---

Nick blinks his eyes open, and there’s sunlight streaming through the window of the loft living room. His face is stuck to the leather couch with a pool of drool, a queasy feeling in his stomach that he only gets after nightmares. Of course it was a dream. Jess is gone. He knows that, even if his sleeping, concussed brain hasn’t quite faced that reality. Nick gives his face a slap as he slowly pushes himself up into a sitting position. His head aches again, and Nick glances over to the DVD player to see what time it is, but the numbers swim around and don’t tell him anything worth knowing. 

With a reluctant sigh of acceptance Nick heaves himself up off the couch, hopping on one leg as he hoists his crutches up from the floor before stalking off to the kitchen, where he pours himself a bowl of cereal. After a moment of dread, he looks over at the kettle that Jess had used last night, but it’s not on the stove. It must be packed away where Schmidt always keeps it when Jess isn’t using it. No one’s touched the damn thing since the accident. Even Jess’ little tin of tea bags is still sitting abandoned in the back corner of the kitchen counter.

He’s going crazy. That’s the only explanation for it. He’s guilty and grieving and trying to recover from a serious head injury. Even the thought of it sends another wave of pain radiating through his skull. Nick shovels a bite of cereal into his mouth, and it’s not until he chews that he realizes that he doesn’t remember pouring milk into his bowl. But before he can think too hard about it, he’s interrupted by Schmidt’s door swinging open behind him.

“Hey man,” he says, brushing past him to start up a pot of his ridiculously fancy coffee press thing. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Nick answers honestly.

Schmidt hums in consolation as he fills the coffee-thing with tap water. He must be out of the needlessly expensive mineral water he uses. “Yeah, thought so.” The sink cuts off and the stove sparks to life as Schmidt sets the press on the front burner before turning back to Nick. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here, you clown,” Nick responds, his brow furrowing. The expression tugs harder at the ache behind his temples, and he forces his face to relax. 

He watches as Schmdit bustles around the kitchen, grabbing his AssStrat mug off the dish drying rack as he goes to get his oat milk or whatever it is he’s using these days out of the fridge. Nick takes another bite of cereal, but it’s already gone soggy while he was distracted by Schmidt’s weird comment. The melted flakes stick to the back of his esophagus as he tries to swallow, making his throat feel tight as he attempts to clear it with a cough. 

After a few moments pass, Schimdt finally finishes assembling his drink and turns back to face Nick. He takes a long sip of his concoction before grimacing. “Man, this coffee is the worst.”

“It’s that oat stuff you’re using,” Nick says, gesturing to the carton on the counter. The label swims in his vision, but he knows those colors thanks to one too many accidental sips straight from the container when he was too lazy to get a glass or pause to figure out exactly what he was about to drink.

Schmidt laughs a little and takes a seat beside him at the kitchen island. “Would it kill them to invest in a Starbucks or something?”

Nick looks at him for a long moment, confusion settling over him yet again as he tries to parse out the meaning of Schmidt’s words. God, he can’t wait for this concussion to finally heal so he doesn’t feel like he’s going crazy all the time. Which reminds him...

“Can I ask you a question?” Nick admits hesitantly, leaning in close to Schmidt so no one but his best friend can hear how stupid he sounds.

“Talk to me.” Schmidt mirrors his posture and also leans in closer, taking another sip of his gross coffee.

“Are ghosts real?”

Schmidt snorts. “C’mon, Nick.”

Nick ducks his head, suddenly realizing just how ridiculous the question is. Of course they’re not real. This is all mixed up inside his rattled noggin. That’s the perfectly reasonable explanation. “You’re right. I’m being ridiculous.”

Schmidt’s hand lands on his shoulder and he gives him a supportive shake. “I gotta go.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll... I’ll see you around.”

“Ssesh. Don’t need to make a big production out of it, Schmitty.”

Schmidt chuckles. “Bye, Nick.”

\---

After Schmidt heads out for work or whatever else he gets up to during the day, the sour taste in Nick's mouth from passing out without brushing his teeth last night grows too much to bear. Nick hops on one leg as he rearranges his crutches in the least uncomfortable position before making his way off to the bathroom. He wets his toothbrush under the sink before smearing toothpaste on the bristles and shoving it into his mouth to scrub at his teeth and get rid of the strange taste lingering in the back of his throat.

He knows what’s going on. Now that it’s actually sinking into his addled head what happened, the guilt of Jess’ untimely death is driving him mad. Nick’s hand falters slightly as his eyes fall shut, the too-familiar ache pounding at his temples. Jess had been right. He was driving too fast, he was being stupid and reckless and now he has to face the consequences of that. But it’s not the right consequence. He should be the one six feet under, not Jess, who didn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one who doesn’t have anything to make out of his life, at least nothing that he deserves to have, especially now that he’s destroyed the one good thing to ever happen to him.

And it’s not just his life that he’s ruined. Jess is gone.  _ Gone _ . Her parents will never get to celebrate another Christmas or Thanksgiving without wishing she was there to be with them. Her students will never see her in the halls, smiling cheerily and encouraging them to try out for the fall musical. Cece won’t have her best friend to share secrets and say that she deserves better when her latest trashy excuse of a boyfriend inevitably does something stupid. The loft feels so empty without her, and even though Winston and Schmidt are trying to be supportive of him, he can tell they’re upset by the loss. 

Nick leans down to spit into the sink and swishes a handful of water around in his mouth as his toothbrush falls back onto the metal shelf above the sink with a clatter. He slowly straightens up, and the sour taste of guilt in the back of his throat overwhelms the mint of his toothpaste. Nick scrubs his hands over his face again, too ashamed to face his own reflection in the mirror, though he's sure that it would just look like some kind of abstract painting given how wacked up his head is these days.

With a sigh he leaves the bathroom to stumble into his room. Nick tosses the crutches onto the floor beside his bed before falling down ungracefully onto the mattress. His back aches almost instantly, and Nick groans as he tries to shift into a semi-comfortable position without jostling his broken leg. He rolls over onto his side, and a shiver comes over him again when he blinks his eyes open.

Jess is sitting on the other side of the bed, her back to him and her legs dangling over the edge of the mattress. The slope of her bare back shimmers, the curls of her hair swirling weightlessly around her shoulders. Her hands are resting on either side of her hips, palms pressed down on his mattress as she stares silently at his bedroom window. Nick’s eyes trace over the gentle curves of her that are almost ethereal. In the full light of day she's even more strange, like an afterimage burned into the back of his eyelids, the rough shape of a bright light that fades with each blink.

“Jess?” he asks, heart stuttering.

She turns her head towards him, looking at him over her shoulder, translucent hair floating through the air. The shapes that make up her face blur in his eyes. He can almost see them moving when he stares for too long, like a drawing animated by someone with a shaky hand. The sunlight glints off the upper curve of her arm, and it catches a few of the tiny pieces of dust as they pass through her form before drifting off through the air.

_ “Nick, please.” _

“I know you’re not real," he stammers, equal parts wishing and terrified she'll disappear once he admits it.

Just like the night before, his words don't seem to register with her. She shifts on the bed, bringing up one leg to curl in front of her so she can turn her torso towards him. Unlike the last time he saw her, she isn't wearing any clothes, but the image is just as unsettling. He wants to touch her like the last time she was in his bed, but this isn't her, it couldn’t be. It makes his headache worsen, like there's a huge weight pressing down on the top of his skull.

“I _ can’t keep doing this,"  _ her voice is pained, her offset features realigning to portray the anguish in her tone.

Nick grits his teeth, clinging to whatever scrap of sanity he has left. “This is all in my head,"

_ “I can’t, Nick. I feel like I can’t breathe.” _

“Stop it," he begs.

_ “Please, Nick. Wake up.” _

\---

Nick startles awake for the second time that morning, this time tangled up in his now sweat-soaked sheets. His skin is sticky and feels too-tight on his body, like it’s constricting him and keeping him from being able to breathe. Without allowing himself a moment to dwell on his delusions, he hauls himself out of bed and rips the sheets off the mattress, leaving it bare. He stumbles to the hallway and shoves the linens into the washing machine. The words on the buttons swim in his eyes, so he spins the wheel at random before hitting what he thinks is ‘start’ based on muscle memory. The machine whirs to life, and Nick feels a spark of success in his own adult skills as he collapses against the wall of the hallway, head pounding like a drum. 

\---

Nick doesn’t do much during the days he doesn't have work, and that’s no exception when he’s recovering from the car accident. They don’t want him in the bar when he’s still trying to piece himself together, and Big Bob tells him as much when he calls in sick. It takes him a dozen times to finally dial the right number, accidentally getting at least five wrong voicemails and the rest are his phone yelling at him in artificial robotic voices that the number is invalid or disconnected. His phone screen doesn’t make any sense to him, and the more he stares at the bright light of it the more his head aches. 

He’s sitting on the couch and listening to an old Cubs game playing on  _ ESPN Classic _ , his eyes closed and head tipped back against the cushions of the couch because it hurts too much to try and watch the broadcast on the tv itself. He's exhausted. Every time he tries to rest, his traitorous mind puts him through the wringer, dragging him back into the pool of his guilt by making him come face to eerie replica of a face with the personification of his greatest failure.

It’s eating him up from the inside, gnawing at the empty cavern of his chest and his aching head until he’s sick with it. Nick’s come to accept and even expect a certain level of failure from himself, whether that’s a doomed tomato garden on the roof or a squandered career as a lawyer or a disastrously turbulent relationship with Caroline that ended with him getting dumped time and time again. But Jess is so much better than that. She had ambition and dreams and a bright shining future that for one bright moment Nick wondered if he might be able to slot himself into. We would’ve done anything for her, would’ve given every ounce of himself away just to see her smile and make her happy. 

But of course, nothing good for him ever lasts. He ruined this, just like he ruins everything else he touches, like a shitty version of King Midas. It’s like there’s something terrible inside of him that eats away anything like a viscous acid, and not even Jess was strong enough to survive it. 

His head reels and his stomach heaves as he thinks about the crash. He knows now that he’ll never forgive himself for it. Hell, it’ll be a miracle if he manages to live with himself once things go back to normal, or as normal as they can be without Jess in their lives. It’s all because of him. They’ll never get to see Jess’ smile or hear her loud laugh again, and it’s all thanks to Nick Miller, serial fuck up. 

There’s a sudden itchiness in his eyes, and Nick dimly feels a few hot tears trickle traitorously down his cheeks. Nick reluctantly blinks open his eyes, reaching up to rub at his face with the back of his hand before one of the guys catches him crying. He pulls his hand away from his face to dry it on his shirt before freezing mid-gesture, because there’s Jess again. 

She’s standing in front of him, fully transparent and floating a few inches off the ground. The softness she had in their previous encounters is gone, instead she’s made entirely of hard lines and sharp angles that crackle threateningly with potential energy. Her hair billows around her like an angry cloud, the fabric of her dress fluttering with a nonexistent wind, and Nick half expects her to be holding a flaming sword. There's a terror that grips his heart and sends a fresh spike of pain up the base of his skull, even worse than the ones before it. 

_ “Why are you doing this to me?”  _

Nick's brow furrows, and it worsens the agony of his headache. “What?”

Jess stares blankly at him, surreal and terrifying. Her eyes are spotlights of bright white light, unseeing as they glare down at him. When she opens her mouth more light spills out, lips downturned in fury. It makes him think of their fights, her never ending passion and conviction of her own supposedly-correct opinion. But then he thinks of the last time they fought, what became their final fight and the last memory of Jess' existence on this plane of reality. The memory doubles-down the pain coursing steadily through his skull.

_ “Do you know how much I’m hurting?” _

“I’m not doing anything,” Nick stammers, feeling just as helpless as he did at that stupid funeral. 

_ “This is all your fault.” _

Her words twist at Nick's gut and seize his heart in his chest, guilt and shame and sorrow boiling in his blood. She’s right. She’s always right. He deserves this, deserves her anger, deserves her swift judgement and execution. Nick feels like he ought to fall to his knees before her, to clasp his hands together and beg for penance that he doesn’t deserve. 

“What do I do?”

_ “You need to wake up.” _

\---

Nick startles awake with a crick in his neck, the game long since over and some documentary about Tiger Woods playing in the background. It’s nighttime, and Nick’s dimly aware that he must have slept through the entire day. He semi-recalls the doctor telling him to limit the lengths of his sleep, just to make sure he continues to wake up each time. But apparently he's fine, even if the dull stinging in his brain begs to differ.

“Hey,” Winston says, nudging his arm as he falls onto the couch beside him. 

“I think I’m going crazy," Nick admits, head still reeling from his last vision.

“Yeah, me too.”

“I mean it," he insists, trying to pour as much as he can into the words without full-on admitting that he thinks he's being gaslit by the ghost of the woman whose death he caused.

Winston hums, reaching out for the remote and switching to some new channel. The light of the screen flickers, casting a new color across the floor of the living room. “I got bit by a badger. Not sure if you remember that.”

“At the wedding?”

“Oh, and I might be colorblind," Winston continues, ignoring Nick's semi-rhetorical question.

Nick hums in thought, thinking of the last time Winston tried to do a puzzle and instead had to be corralled back into the realm of sanity. Though after all that's happened to him over the past hours, Nick no longer feels like he's in a position to judge. “Yeah, I can believe that.”

There’s a moment of silence between them. Nick appreciates how Winston is okay to let pauses like this linger. He stares blankly at the bright flashes of the television, frustrated that he can’t even make out what’s going on. He doesn't understand why nothing makes sense to him anymore. It's like he can't even trust his own head. He wonders if this is some kind of sixth stage of grief, a level of misery reserved for horrible people like him who deserve to suffer as a result of their actions.

“Am I ever gonna feel normal again?” The question twists at his stomach, an acknowledgement of the horrible reality in which Jess continues to haunt him while he slowly but surely loses his mind. Nick doesn't know how he's supposed to cope with this loss. He feels like he's lost everything, and in a way he really has.

“Docs say it doesn’t look good," Winston replies cryptically.

Nick frowns, the relentless ache of his head returning in full force. “When did you start talking to my doctor?”

Winston gives his shoulder another shake. “I know you man. You got this.”

\---

Nick loses track of time again, and it’s not until he feels the blanket draped over his bare legs that he realizes he’s tucked into his bed, even though he can’t quite remember how he got here. His mouth feels all slimy and gross, and he knows he should probably get up and brush his teeth, but he’s comfy here. One night can’t hurt, right?

Sleep tugs at his heavy eyelids, his head aching like it has been insistently all day. Nick shivers and settles deeper under the covers, tugging his comforter/sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. He can feel the pull of darkness luring him to fall into it and allow it to swallow him up and finally allow him to rest. As he leans forward into the black Nick feels another tug in his gut, something he doesn't know how to describe telling him not to go. It doesn't make sense, and for the hundredth time Nick wishes he wasn't so fucking confused by everything around him. It's exhausting and he wants so desperately for it to just stop.

He blinks his tired eyes slowly and when he opens them again Jess is at his side, leaning against his bedside table as she looks at the bed. She's even more ghostly than the other times she appeared, like whatever life source she has is fading away. Nick can almost see clear through her, the light of his lamp shining through her transparent face as she stares at him. He can see the outlines of her form and features shimmering in the darkness, like a line drawing he tried to make of her from memory. 

It’s the first time she’s really looked directly at him, and Nick feels it boring into him like a sharp stabbing pain. She lifts a hand slowly, half outstretched towards him like she's beckoning for him to take it. Nick feels paralyzed with fear as he stares at the vague haze of her arm, her slim wrist and the delicate lines of fingers. He could wrap his whole hand around the width of hers, or interlock their fingers together. Instead he lies limply on the bed, staring up at her helplessly.

_ “Please, I don’t know if you can hear me.” _

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words burning his mouth the minute he says them. It echoes deep in his chest just how badly he’s fucked up. He wonders how long she’s going to haunt him for, if this is his punishment for destroying her life. 

Jess sags, like an invisible weight is pushing her ghostly form down as she sinks through the surface of the table. There's hurt spelled out clearly in her strange features, and it seizes at Nick's heart as his head explodes in a stabbing pain like a million needles threading through his scalp. She looks miserable, and the chorus of ' _ you did this to her _ ' rings in his ears almost as clearly as her next words. 

_ “When are you going to wake up, Nick?” _

“I can’t.” His heart pounds in his chest in time to the blinding pain in his head. He wants it to end, wants to set her free. Maybe if he gives in to the blackness creeping in the edges of his vision she'll finally disappear for good.

_ “Please, Nick.” _

She grabs his wrist, and it burns him like hot iron, painfully searing his skin. But despite the agony of it scorching his sensitive skin, Nick can’t yank his hand out of her grip. His arm just lies there, useless, tied down by the line of his IV. Jess is staring at him and her face shimmers, something like tears running down her face as she begs him to end her anguish. For a ghost she’s surprisingly firm, like she’s really holding onto him.

_ “Please.” _

Nick’s head feels like it might explode. The pain worsens as Jess’ hand tightens around his wrist, nails digging into his skin. His fingers twitch as the ache in his head worsens to impossibly new levels, like his skull is being squeezed by a giant fist while his brain melts out of his ears. The darkness in the edges of his vision creeps closer as he screws his eyes shut, struggling to breathe and desperate for relief. Nick can feel it closing in on him again, only for Jess's white hot grip on his arm to reel him back.

_ “Nick.” _

“Fuck,” he mutters, clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth with the pain of it. He feels like an ice pick is being driven through his temple, splitting his head open in two as he tries to push through it. Jess’ voice is the only thing he can hear, and it rings in his ears like glass stabbing through his exhausted eyes. He’s so tired. So fucking tired. But he’s sick of sleeping. He wants to wake up. He  _ needs _ to wake up. 

_ “Nick!” _

\---

It’s bright. So fucking bright. Nick blinks his eyes open and immediately shuts them with a wince, the sudden and unexpected contrast burning through his closed eyelids. After a moment the pain fades, and Nick pries his eyes open slowly, trying to block out the worst of it with his eyelashes as he squints around at his harshly lit surroundings. 

He’s not in the loft. He doesn’t have the sightest idea where the fuck he actually is, but it’s not the loft. It smells weird, like after Schmidt’s spring cleaning sweep where he scrubs every surface with that awful disinfectant he buys in bulk from some industry-grade place online that only sells it by the gallon tub. There's something heavy lying on his chest, pinning him down to the firm bed beneath him.

“Nick?” Jess’ voice is crystal clear, like she’s right next to him. But that’s not right. Nick doesn’t know why, but it’s not. He tries to remember but it flares up the ache behind his temples and his eyes fall shut again.

There’s a soft brush over his forehead, like someone’s fingertips. Nick forces his eyes open one more time, and sure enough, there’s a hand right in front of his face. It gently pushes his hair off of his sweaty brow, lingering a moment too long on his overheated skin. With a reluctant groan Nick rolls his head to look at the mystery person attached to said hand.

It’s Jess. Her dark hair is pushed back into a messy ponytail, the parts near her scalp gleaming under the artificial lights above them. She’s wearing a familiar slightly-stained hoodie, the one he remembers wearing that fateful afternoon they tried to play football with a few of their other friends in the park. It looks massive on her, both because it’s loose on him and they’re already so different in sizing, but also because she seems even more thin than usual, like when she tried to go on that lemon juice ‘cleanse’ that ended with her throwing up in the bathroom sink three days later while he begged her to eat some actual food. He dimly wonders how long it’s been since her last meal. Jess looks almost as exhausted as he feels, dark bags under her eyes and worry lines wrinkling her brow and the corners of her mouth. It makes him feel sad, and he silently resolves to fix whatever it is that’s got her all upset.

“Nick?” she asks again, her voice wavering.

“You look like shit,” he stammers, his throat rough like sandpaper and dimly aware that he’s probably said the wrong thing.

In spite of his utterly stupid comment, Jess’ face lights up, tears welling up in her eyes as she laughs, only a touch hysterical as she launches herself at him. Nick lets out a soft  _ oof _ as she crashes into his chest, pulling him forward off the bed to wrap her arms tight around him. His hands reflexively come up to settle on her sides as she buries her face in his neck. There’s something wet against his skin, and he dimly realizes she’s crying.

“Hey, you don’t have to be upset,” he says dumbly, fingers flexing against the fabric of her sweatshirt. “I’m sorry.”

Jess laughs again, half wet sob and half disbelief. “I...” she starts, but then trails off, apparently lost for words, and instead just squeezes him again.

Nick holds Jess for a while, relaxing into her with his head tucked into her shoulder and his forehead resting against her jaw. She feels so  _ real _ , and whatever dream within a dream this is, it’s a nice one. It makes his heart swell with a tentative flicker of hope, like maybe he managed not to ruin things for once in his life. Like maybe the universe has given him a second chance to go back and make things right. 

After what feels like forever, Jess finally pulls away from him. She’s still holding onto his forearms, her touch surprisingly firm. Nick looks at her hands for a while before slowly traveling up her arms to look at her face. Jess is smiling at him, bright and beautiful. It’s shockingly genuine, and he realizes just how much ghost Jess got wrong.

Wait. 

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital.” Jess’ thumb gently strokes over his skin.

“No, I was discharged from the hospital.” Nick racks his still-aching head, trying to remember. He thinks he was, but now that he says it he can’t actually remember filling out any paperwork. He’d assumed that Schmidt did it for him. Trying to remember makes the dull throbbing behind his eye sockets flare up, undoing whatever good Jess’ hug had done to wash away the pain.

Jess frowns, teeth dragging over her lower lip in worry. “You’ve been here for a week.”

“We were in a car crash,” Nick continues, his eyes dropping back down to where she’s holding him. The pieces are slowly assembling themselves in his head, like he's trying to retrace his steps and remember where he left his keys. “And you’d...”

“We were arguing and didn’t realize a truck was coming right for us," she fills in, her hands tightening on his forearms, like she's trying to reassure herself that he's in front of her. The pressure is shockingly firm, but Nick’s been fooled before, hesitant to commit to this version of reality without the indisputable proof that he isn’t just making up some scenario to wash away his misery and guilt.

“I was in the loft." Nick's brow furrows, a too-familiar dull headache building behind his forehead, the only constant while he felt he was losing his mind with grief and guilt over her death. "You were gone. But I kept seeing you.”

“You were in a coma.” Jess’ frown deepens as she corrects him, but although the words resonate in his chest they don't stick to his thoughts as a reality. “You must’ve been dreaming.”

Nick looks back up at her face. Jess' features are solid and familiar. The planes of her face are opaque and reflect the florescent hospital lights above their heads. Nick presses his thumb against her wrist, oddly surprised when it doesn’t pass through her skin. Her eyes are blue and shimmery in a way that sends an uncomfortable shiver down his spine when he thinks of her distant and unseeing gaze. “You were a ghost. And you were telling me to wake up.”

A heavy sadness falls over Jess' face, one that's heart achingly familiar and it sends a fresh wave of guilt washing over him. Her eyes flick over his features, like she’s trying to commit him to memory. “I kept talking to you, hoping you could hear me.”

His head is starting to clear, and for the first time he feels like he can actually think straight. It's like a weight is lifting off his shoulders and he can finally trust what's in front of him isn't just a phantom cooked up by grief. The strange fog clouding his reasoning is slowly dissipating as the pieces click into place: the odd passage of time that he couldn't remember, the way words and numbers swirled incomprehensibly when he tried to read them, the strange words of his friends as they ignored his responses and carried on speaking to him. It was all a nightmare, where the only thing that tethered him to this world was Jess’ words cutting through the fog and weaving themselves into his subconscious. 

“You said I was hurting you," he repeats, her words rattling in his head now that he knows they were real and not just the cryptic messages of a ghost haunting him. Nick dimly realizes the grief and pain that he must have put her through, an echo of which still feels lodged into his chest from when he'd been convinced that she had died because of his recklessness. He’d left her all alone to deal with this, to try and process the reality of losing him and cope with the fact that it was their fight that had brought this upon them.

“I...” Jess draws back slightly, but Nick grabs her hands with his to hold her firmly. He needs something to keep him tethered to this reality, where Jess is alive and he just woke up from a week-long coma. Her gaze drops down to look at where he's holding her, her voice rough as she admits, “That was a hard night. The doctors wanted to take you off life support, and I-” Jess hiccups, a tear slipping down her face. “It just felt so hopeless.”

Nick brings up one of his hands to cradle her cheek and wipe away her tears. His thumb brushes over the dark shadow under her eye and he marvels at just how real she feels, her skin firm and warm beneath his palm. “Were you here this whole time?” he asks her in disbelief.

Jess leans into his touch, and the look in her eyes makes his heart ache. “I couldn’t leave you.”

“Fuck,” Nick curses under his breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re here,” she whispers, tears welling up in her eyes. “That’s what matters.”

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve her. He knows that. But he cares about her so fucking much, and the shimmer and depth of emotion in her crystal blue eyes tells him that she, impossibly, feels the same about him. There’s bags under her eyes from sleepless nights spent worrying at his bedside, the familiar green sweatshirt wrinkled from spending too many hours sitting in the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair, exhausted and yet unable to leave his side. There’s no doubt in his mind that he would’ve done the same for her, that he would’ve driven himself mad waiting by her bedside and fighting off anyone who tried to reason with him and convince him to go home.

Nick opens his mouth to say something, but he doesn’t have the words to describe the hurt and joy and sadness and love that he feels for her. 

Instead he gently tugs at her hand and kisses her. He can feel Jess smiling against his mouth and her hands come up to frame his face as she returns the kiss. Nick’s eyes fall shut as he deepens the kiss, his heart soaring as he thanks his lucky stars for yanking him back into reality instead of letting him careen into nothingness without her to pull his sorry ass away from the dark. Jess’ thumbs stroke over his cheeks, and Nick dimly realizes he’s crying, and he reaches forward to wrap his arms around Jess’ middle in disbelief, holding her the way he thought he never would get to do again.

_ “It’s okay,” _ she mumbles against his lips before pressing another kiss to his mouth.  _ “You’re alright.”  _ Another kiss.  _ “I’m here.” _

When they finally break apart Nick buries his face into her neck, holding Jess as tight as he can and swearing that he’ll never let her go, his heart soaring at the way she clings to him just as hard.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on tumblr @actualbabe


End file.
